Rains force cancellation of Mardi Gras parade

Rains force cancellationof Mardi Gras parade
NEW ORLEANS -- Driving rains forced the cancellation of one traditional Mardi Gras parade Monday, but hard-core revelers still drank beer and strolled along partly flooded Bourbon street, celebrating the raucous climax of New Orleans' Carnival season.
Parade organizers and businesses dependent on the usual influx of more than a million locals and tourists held out hope that the flooding and rains would not keep partiers from enjoying themselves and spending money.
The 112-year-old "Proteus" parade was canceled, but others went ahead as planned. Some spectators chose to watch parades from the comfort of restaurants and bars to avoid the damp weather.
Crowds milled among the bars, restaurants, hotels and strip joints on Bourbon Street, and throngs gathered to catch strings of beads tossed from wrought-iron balconies, even as steady winds blew sheets of rain.
The annual festival is held before the fasting and penitence of Lent, the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter.
Searchers recover bodiesof missing crew members
NEW ORLEANS -- The bodies of three crew members missing after their cargo ship sank in the Mississippi River were found Monday, as rescuers worked to remove the wreckage that has blocked the main channel since Saturday's accident.
The search for two remaining crew members was called off and rescuers and salvage workers focused on clearing the channel, the only one deep enough for large oceangoing ships to make their way from the Gulf of Mexico into the lower Mississippi.
Scores of freighters were stopped cold and thousands of cruise ship passengers were stuck in New Orleans on Monday because of the shipwreck.
Gary LaGrange, executive director of the Port of New Orleans, said authorities hoped to have the channel cleared this afternoon, but it might take until Wednesday because of strong wind. The weather service issued tornado warnings for the southeastern part of the state.
Polio vaccine boycott
KADUNA, Nigeria -- A boycott of the vaccine for polio spread to two more northern Nigerian Islamic states today, U.N. Children's Fund officials said, hampering a drive to immunize 63 million children in 10 African nations against a polio outbreak.
UNICEF officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said authorities of Niger and Bauchi states had declared they would no longer offer any cooperation with a 2-day old emergency vaccination, launched Monday.
Nigeria's Kano, Zamfara and Kaduna states already have banned the polio vaccine since October, although Kaduna authorities relented in time for vaccine teams to start going door-to-door in that state Monday.
Northern Nigeria Islamic leaders say the immunization campaign is part of a U.S. plot to depopulate Muslim northern Nigeria by spreading AIDS or sterilizing agents. Northern states say their own lab tests show contaminants in the vaccine.
Prodigious porker
BEIJING -- Spare ribs, anyone?
Chinese officials figure a 1,980-pound pig that died from lack of exercise has a shot at being named the world's biggest pig. They plan to apply for a listing in the Guinness Book of Records, the government's news agency said Monday.
The pig, which was 8 feet 3 inches long, is already the heaviest ever reported in China, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
The beast had a girth of 7 feet 3 inches and its tusks were 5 3/4 inches long when it died Feb. 5, the agency said. It cited the pig's keeper, Xu Changjin, a farmer in the northeastern province of Liaoning.
The pig lived to be 5 years old -- considered long in China, where most pigs are slaughtered by age 3 -- and was kept in a "nicely built sty," the report said.
China's previous heaviest pig weighed in at 1,540 pounds, Liu Mingyu, a professor at Liaoning University, said.
Peterson jury questions
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- Potential jurors in the Scott Peterson double-murder trial will be questioned about whether they have ever had an extramarital affair or lost a child when selection begins next week.
A judge Monday scheduled the opening stages of jury selection after lawyers outlined questions they plan to ask San Mateo County residents who report for duty next Monday.
Potential jurors will be handed a questionnaire designed to probe their attitudes on everything from the death penalty to how much news they've absorbed about the case.
Judge Alfred A. Delucchi said he will give prosecutors another chance to add questions today, but at 120 questions the form is nearly complete.
Associated Press